


Burned

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s happened?” Angel asked over the phone.<br/>“I just needed to talk to you,” Buffy said.<br/>Another pause. “About what?”<br/>Buffy almost blurted it out. Spike’s gotten his soul back! He’s gotten his soul, and it’s driven him mad. What the hell do I do?!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burned

    “Yeahp?”  

    The voice on the phone sounded busy, distracted, and Buffy almost hung up.  But – “Angel?”

    “Buffy!” The tone changed dramatically, and Buffy heard a noise on the other end of the line. Whatever Angel had been doing, he’d just put it away. “Is something wrong? Do you need me?”

    “Not really,” Buffy said. “I just... I wanted to hear your voice.”

    There was a long pause on the other line. Buffy never did this. They’d agreed to never do this. This wasn’t part of the deal – unless it was an emergency, there were no late-night chats, no casual conversations; there was nothing intimate or personal or familiar. Angel claimed it would be too hard, and a long time ago Buffy had agreed. They hadn’t really spoken since just after she’d been brought back to life. He knew nothing of her life, now. Rumors of Willow’s turn to the dark side and subsequent retraining had trickled down to him through Giles and Wesley, Buffy knew, but otherwise Angel was completely out of the loop on Scooby news.

    He knew nothing of Spike.

    “What’s happened?” Angel asked.

    “I just needed to talk to you,” Buffy said.

    Another pause. “About what?”

    Buffy almost blurted it out. _Spike’s gotten his soul back! He’s gotten his soul, and it’s driven him mad. What the hell do I_ do _?!_ But it was Spike, and it was Angel, and she knew he was the wrong person to ask for advice. Particularly given the reasons for it. Angel would never forgive Spike. Angel’d never forgive _her_. He’d probably never forgive himself for leaving Buffy in the first place. Angel was hard and judgmental and the two vampires hated each other with a smoldering resentment that Buffy was sure would never be properly explained – the sort of hatred that can only be born of long acquaintance. It was ludicrous of her to have called Angel in the first place. But she’d needed to hear him. He was real. He was sane. She had to know it was possible for a vampire to live... like that.

    “I guess I just needed you to talk to me,” she said.

    “Buffy, something’s got to be wrong,” Angel said. “Did something happen with Willow?”

   “No. Giles says Willow’s doing very well.” 

   “Is it something else?” 

   _Yes! The vampire lover I poured my life into has broken under the weight of a love I never believed in, and is lying shattered and insane, and I don’t know what to do – or if I’m meant to do anything at all!_   “No,” Buffy lied. “Everyone is fine.” 

   “You don’t sound fine,” Angel said.

    Buffy wasn’t listening. She was caught in that church, staring again in horror at Spike’s martyred form, clutching that burning cross as though it were a lover. “Can we rest now?” The remembered smell of ethereal smoke tickled at Buffy’s nose. A burning vampire smelled nothing like burning wood, or burning meat. It was almost an incense, redolent of demonic magics. “Buffy? Can we rest?”

    She stood silent, forgetting Angel on the phone, as her mind flashed through everything, all her wild, passionate moments with Spike, hoping to find something that would keep his current torment from being all her fault. She’d been trying to nurture her hatred for him since he’d left, and she’d felt it a losing battle. There was too much, it was too big to try and pinpoint a moment ( _you know when it was_ ) when this desperate act he had committed had to have been the result.

    Was it because she had kissed him, falling into the spell of a magical musical dream because it was easier than facing reality? ( _That wasn’t it._ ) Was it because she’d let it happen again, grasping hold of his vampiric hunger because she herself felt only alone? ( _That was only selfish._ ) Was it because she’d let his violence drag her into a passion she couldn’t make herself suppress? ( _That was pure desire, and not only yours._ ) Was it that she couldn’t make herself stop, indulging in him as in an addiction, unable to tear herself away? ( _That can’t have been it. It was what he wanted._ ) Was it that she’d attacked him, over and over again, for being a thing, a soulless creature she could never love? ( _You’re getting closer._ )  It couldn’t have been that she’d ended it. ( _That wasn’t it, either. Everyone has the right to end a relationship they’re not content with._ )

    Was it... was it...? ( _You know what it was. And it wasn’t you._ )

    One act of violence. One act of desperation. One moment when the demon in Spike had taken him over, leaving nothing of the man inside who loved her. One moment in her own bathroom, when her physical weakness and his emotional one had compounded in an act of horror that neither of them were ever likely to get over. An act that had haunted her. An act that, she now knew conclusively, had haunted him.

    Why did she wish it _had_ been her fault? Because she felt more pain now that she realized it wasn’t than when she’d been afraid it was. She supposed, if it had been her fault, then she could have apologized. Sometimes, just sometimes, sorry really could make it better. If it had been her fault, she would know how to avoid doing it again.

    Why did she still feel guilty, if it wasn’t her fault?

    Because the state he was in was not her fault. It wasn’t even his fault. It was a demon of hunger and bloodlust that had struck the final blow. A demon that he, Spike, the ultimate demon fighter, had finally chosen to defeat.

    She didn’t know how he’d done it, but either way, the battle wasn’t over. And Spike wasn’t winning. The man in him wasn’t the fighter, she knew. He was the poet, the lover, the devoted one who lay there and let himself be hurt. And he had been hurting as she watched him. The demon was eating him alive from the inside, and the man was drowning in a century of blood.

    And burning on the cross.

    “Spike, get down from there!” Buffy had finally barked. The smoke was preternaturally sweet, just as a vampire could smell sweet, the magic holding the deadly decay at bay. They had to wash and stay clean, just as humans did, but that scent could be truly heady. She’d always loved the way Spike smelled – even Anya had let slip it was one of the reasons she had... Buffy dropped that line of thought.

    She felt shame as she remembered that she hadn’t reached for him until the smoke tipped from a smolder into flame. “Stop it!” She grabbed hold of his shoulder and yanked him from the cross.

    He screamed as he fell to the ground away from her. It was a short scream, instinct more than anything else, and he cringed away from her hand. “No touching!” he yelled, the light flickering over his face from the burning wood. “No more burning, no, no – burning.”

    “Spike, it’s the cross,” Buffy said.

    “No touching,” Spike said again, “no, no touching. William’s a bad, bad man.” He started to sob. “Take it out of me,” he begged. “Burn it – burn it out of me.”

    Buffy didn’t know what to say. She stared down at him, her makeshift stake, the shard of splintered pew in her hand.

    “Do you want this body?” he asked, looking up at her. “It’s all yours. All the bits. All the pieces. Help me. _Help me!_ ” Buffy jumped back as he lunged at her, but he wasn’t trying to grab her. He had just tried to throw himself at the stake in her hand. “Take it out of me!”

    “I – can’t,” Buffy said.

    He started to laugh, and then to sob. “You never wanted it there,” he whispered. “I never wanted you... there... tearing me open... burning... burning....” The straight edged burns of the cross on his pale skin were dark in the dim light. He turned back to her and took hold of the point of the stake. He held it to his breast and stared at her, his eyes black in the dim light. She looked into his mad eyes, and the fearless slayer, who could face any and every vampire with courage and conviction, was terrified by him. “Is that where it is?” he asked quietly. “Is that where we are?” He pushed the piece of wood roughly down his chest, leaving another scratch on his already tortured flesh. Buffy let it go, left it in his hand, and he stared at it. His hand shook, and the shard of wood fell to the floor with a clatter. He followed it a moment later, sinking to the ground, his head on his knee. “From beneath,” he muttered. “Beneath you. I’m beneath you....”

    Buffy couldn’t watch it anymore. She backed away from him, telling herself she was going to help Xander, going to make sure Anya’s vengeance was really ended, telling herself that she was doing anything other than running away.

    But she _had_ run away.

    “Buffy!” Angel had said her name at least three times as she’d silently cried, holding the phone, the smell of demonic smoke still torturing her memory.

    “I’m fine,” Buffy said.

    He heard the lie as clearly as if all she’d said was, _I’m lying_. “Buffy, do you need me in Sunnydale?”

    “No,” Buffy said quickly. The idea of Spike having to face Angel in his current state was horrifying. She knew that only one of them would make it out alive from that meeting, intentional or not, and in the state Spike was in, she knew it wouldn’t be Spike.

    Finally she knew what she needed to ask Angel. “Angel? How do you face it?”

    “Face what?”

    “How do you face all the horrible things you’ve done?” she asked.

    There was a long pause on the other end. “I don’t,” he finally said. “I have to turn away from it, or I crumble.”

    “How do you do that?”

    Angel hesitated, and then answered truthfully. “I fell in love with you,” he said. “You opened a new path in the wilderness, and I do my best to follow it. I can’t look behind. If I did, I’d....” he trailed off with a sigh.

    “Go mad?” Buffy asked.

    “Something like that,” Angel said. “Why are you asking me this?”

    “I just needed to know,” Buffy said.

    “Buffy,” Angel said. There was an awkward pause. “You’re nothing like me, you know. I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to know that. Life is complicated. Choices have to be made. Whatever you’ve done, it can’t be that evil. I know you. Every wrong you’ve ever done has been done out of love.”

    It wasn’t Angel’s fault. She’d been talking about Spike, but Angel could only assume she’d been talking about herself. It wasn’t until he’d said it that she knew she actually _had_ been talking about herself. Buffy sobbed twice, loudly, unable to hold it back, and Angel sounded suddenly panicked. “Buffy? Buffy, what’s wrong?”

    “You don’t know me, Angel,” she said quietly. Only one person in the world knew her, knew both her light and her darkness, her courage and her pain, her kindness and her cruelty, and his love for her had broken him. She had behaved like a monster, when he was trying to be a man. And none of it – not a single moment of her selfish, brutal cruelty had been done out of love. She’d been feeling guilty all evening for the wrong thing. Spike’s current torment wasn’t her fault. That night in her bathroom had not been her fault, either. But everything else he’d undergone, all the abuse, emotional and physical, that she had put him through... that was. Spike was suffering now under the weight of his conscience. It wasn’t until now that Buffy realized – she’d been completely ignoring hers.

    “Yes, I do know you,” Angel insisted. “Buffy, you drew something pure out of me. Out of this dark pit of evil, you drew something pure. Only strength and virtue could have done that.”

    Angel’s praise felt like a false brand. For months she’d treated Spike as an object, a toy, a punching bag whose feelings and emotions didn’t matter, because they couldn’t be real. She’d convinced herself he was a _thing_ , not a person, something she couldn’t really hurt. Her fleeting sorrows and regrets for her actions had never consolidated into anything resembling actual guilt. Then that evening in her bathroom, when he’d snapped, had washed her clean of responsibility for it all. He was evil, she was good, and she’d been ready to put the whole thing back on the footing they’d used to be on. She’d done as Angel had done, put it behind her and failed to look back. But she’d forgotten one important step. All her regret for her actions had been for herself. All her remorse had been completely egocentric. It wasn’t until now, when Spike was suffering from his own choice, that she realized how much suffering she’d caused him by all of hers. She’d burned him, as surely as that cross had. No touching. No more burning.

    She’d been behaving just as soullessly as Spike.

    “That’s not all I am, Angel,” Buffy confessed.

    “That’s all that’s important,” Angel said. “If you weren’t those things, I would never have been able to go on without you, knowing I had to walk this path. My love for you set me on it. Your love for me made me believe it. Whatever fate has in store, for you or me, I know the power of good in your soul. I’ve felt it. It made me need to be better than simply no longer a murderer.” He paused. “Do you believe me?”

    Buffy was thinking on what he said. “What if you couldn’t hear me?” she asked. “What if you were too lost in the dark to know where the path was?”

    “Then I trust you could have lit a light for me,” Angel said. “One little spark, burning in the darkness. If you’d kept it kindled long enough... I’d have found it. All it would take is time.”

    “Time?” Buffy said. “Even in pain?”

    “In pain, in remorse, in madness, anything. All it would have taken is time.”

    “But what if I can’t face it?” she said, not even sure what she was asking. Face Spike, face her regret, face the madness. Face what Spike had done... both before and after he’d left.

    “Then you need to give yourself time, first, before you try,” Angel said. “Buffy, are you sure you don’t need me to come up?”

    “No,” Buffy said. “I think I’m okay now.” As she said it, she knew she meant it. She was okay – or she would be. “Thank you.”

    “If you need me, Buffy–”

    “Thank you,” she said again, more final. “I’m good.”

    “All right. I lo–” Angel cut himself off, and Buffy almost rolled her eyes.

    “I love you, too,” she said, casual, as if speaking to a cousin.

    “Stay strong.”

    “You too,” Buffy said.

    She took a shaky breath as she hung up the phone. Time. Angel was right – she needed to give herself time. Time before she faced Spike again. Time for Spike to try and settle into his new... shape, or whatever it was. And then... then... she needed to find a light. Just one burning spark to help him find his path – whatever that might ultimately be. That was all that was required of her. Not guilt, not remorse, not to take him back. She just needed to accept... this. Accept what she’d done, accept what he was, what he’d tried to do. And she needed time to do that. Time. And then she could try help him find the path.

    She was glad she had an excuse to stay away for a while. Not forever – she knew she couldn’t stay away forever – but Angel was right. She’d been burned before. She deserved a little time.

    It made her feel a little better about how she’d run away.

    She’d made it to the door of the church before Spike’s mutter had become audible again. “I am sorry.”

    Buffy looked back at him. He was staring at her, his face clear for a moment. The flames had died from the cross behind him, and the moonlight caught his eyes. They had seared into her – she wasn’t sure why. “I know,” was all she said.

    His head sank back down, and he disappeared again beneath the madness. Buffy couldn’t possibly have stayed to watch. There was nothing she could have done to help. Not then.

    But soon. She wouldn’t just abandon him down there. She’d wait, and speak to him, and eventually... eventually she might be able to shed a little light across his darkness. She hugged herself as she headed up the stairs to her own room, and even went so far as to grab one of her old teddy bears from the shelf. She needed something to hold onto tonight.

    She almost wished she could hold Spike. For him, or for herself, she had no idea. But there was far too much between them – too much pain, too much madness, too many mistakes and betrayals and questions. The bear would have to do.

    Even if she had decided to give herself time... it was still hard. She couldn’t shake Spike’s gaze from her memory.

    The pain in his eyes still burned at her like the cross.


End file.
